Background

1. The Scottish Government opened a 12 week consultation on The
Supporting Children's Learning Code of Practice, and associated
regulations, on 19 June 2017; the consultation closed on 12
September 2017. The purpose of this consultation was to seek views
from stakeholders involved in supporting children and young people
with additional support needs. This includes parents and carers,
those working in schools, education authorities, health boards,
social work services, voluntary sector services, and those who are
involved in providing dispute resolution services including:
mediation, independent adjudication and Tribunals. The consultation
would also have been of interest to those organisations and
individuals who have an interest in the promotion of children's
rights in Scotland.

3. In preparation for the changes in January 2018 the Code of
Practice, which is statutory guidance, was updated to take account
of:

the extension to children's rights, with regards to
additional support for learning in school education (eligible
children), this is woven throughout the Code to ensure that all
references to rights include the appropriate children's
rights.

the new requirement on education authorities to assess
capacity and whether or not there may be adverse impact on
wellbeing, with regards to children aged 12+ using their extended
rights.

the information that education authorities should use to
reach conclusions on capacity and adverse impact on wellbeing,
ideally using information that should already be known about the
child.

the associated appeal processes where a decision is taken
that a child does not have capacity or there is adverse impact on
wellbeing and vice versa.

the requirements on Tribunals to assess capacity and whether
or not there may be adverse impact on wellbeing.

the functions of the Children's Support Service to be
established by Scottish Ministers.

Other relevant legislative and policy developments including:
Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (as far as possible
at this stage), Corporate Parenting Responsibilities, Looked
After Children Strategy, National Improvement Framework
etc.

4. This consultation also sought comments on regulations
relating to the Education (Scotland) Act 2016 amendments to the
Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act
2004:

The Additional Support for Learning Dispute Resolution
(Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2017 amends the 2005 regulation
to enable eligible children to use independent adjudication in
their own right.

The Additional Support for Learning (Collection of Data)
(Scotland) Regulations 2017 are created to continue to require
Scottish Ministers to collect and publish specified information.
This regulation recreates the current requirements on Ministers,
so there is in effect no change to these requirements at this
time.

5. The consultation also sought comments on a regulation
relating to the Education (Scotland) Act 2016 amendments to the
Education (Scotland) Act 1980. The Section 70 (Procedure)
(Scotland) Regulations 2017 sets out a broad timescale within which
complaints to Ministers will be considered. The regulation sets a
maximum timescale. This timescale will be drawn out further in
guidance which has also been published for consultation
[1] .

6. Further information on the regulations and consultation
responses to them can be found on pages 21- 23.

7. The consultation questionnaire contained 16 questions, 13
relating to the Supporting Children's Learning Code of Practice and
3 relating to the associated regulations. All questions except
question 13, which was open-ended, sought a yes or no answer with
additional text fields allowing respondents to provide reasons
explaining their selection.

Overview of Consultation responses

8. There were a total of 49 responses received for this
consultation. 38 of those responses came from organisations, whilst
the remaining 11 were submitted by individuals.

Only answers from respondents who gave permission for
publication are published. 39 out of 49 respondents agreed to this.
These responses have been published on the Scottish Government's
Consultation Hub and they can be viewed by accessing the following
link:
https://consult.gov.scot/supporting-learners/code-of-practice/consultation/published_select_respondent.
All responses were taken account of and have been reported on
within this report, but the percentages used in the report refer to
those whose responses were able to be captured against the
structure of the consultation questionnaire and completed a
RIF.

9. All respondents were given the opportunity to submit their
responses anonymously, or for their responses to be anonymised in
reporting. Prior to publication, all responses were moderated to
ensure no inappropriate language or information which could
potentially identify individuals by name.

Action as a result of consultation

10. Overall, the response to the consultation was positive.
There were suggestions for amendments. In the main, these related
to particular areas of the guidance rather than the guidance as a
whole, and therefore are specific in nature. An overview of updates
to the Supporting Children's Learning Code of Practice following
the consultation is below:

The link to early years services, including the Universal
Health Visiting Pathway and the Family Nurse Partnership (
FNP).

The role of the children's support service.

The definitions of eligible pre-school child, young person
and looked after children.

The respective responsibilities and roles of parents, young
people and eligible children.

The role of the Scottish Agricultural College (now
SRUC).

Clarified what is meant by social and emotional factors to
ensure links made to prejudice based bullying.

Emphasised the responsibilities in relation to establishing
additional support needs and co-ordinated support planning for
looked after children.

Included information on Developing the Young Workforce.

Clarified requirements for looked after children and those
leaving care under the Children and Young People (Scotland) 2014
Act.

Included those who are adopted in the list of examples of
reasons why children and young people may require additional
support.

11. In addition to the public consultation, the Scottish
Government held 2 meetings with the representatives of the Advisory
Group for Additional Support for Learning, Association of Directors
of Education and the Association of Support for Learning Officers.
These included a range of representatives including parents, third
sector and statutory organisations. These discussions were very
helpful and constructive. We would like to thank everyone who
responded to the consultation and gave their time to make a
contribution to this consultation.

Next Steps

12. The Code and associated regulations were laid in the
Scottish Parliament on 26 October 2017, for a 40 day period.
Subject to Parliamentary consideration, the Code is expected to be
published by the end of 2017.